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I was catching up with a friend recently, reminiscing about our early UX days when we were envisioning the future of digital experiences. We laughed about how back then we couldn't figure out how Facebook would ever make money. It was such a blind spot for us.
In UX, we're laser focused on helping people accomplish their goals. Making money seemed straightforward, design products people love, and they'll buy it. We came from a product design background where we believe customers would walk into a store, pick out the product we design and pay for it at the counter. That was our worldview for how products made money.
I didn’t realize the design and UX world was shifting around me. As software started eating the world, business models changed. Our designs became a way to attract, engage, and keep people using our experiences, which, in turn, generate more business value. We weren't just making things people bought, we were creating experiences people could use freely while businesses earned money in new ways.
The shift in tech towards businesses run mostly on advertising or subscription models has become one the biggest change in how we approach UX design. There's been lots of talk about design's changing role, the impact of design thinking, fewer leadership opportunities but at the core, it's the business fundamentals driving the demand and the work for design.
We still employed a user center approach, it was the outcomes that shifted, with more focus on user behaviors which expanded our design approach. No longer were we only responsible to help end users achieve their task or accomplish their intent, we were now focus on understanding the funnel, the metrics in each step of the funnel and the user behaviors across the funnel. By designing the funnel, streaming music services showed us how personalization and discovery can turn music into something worth subscribing to. Social media and user generated content became a dominant way for us to create engaging experiences and the impact, both positive and not so positive is well known.?
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The funnel became our way to deliver experiences for how people watch, listen, read, create, build, store, and stay safe in their digital lives.
As we head into the next era of agentic UX, how should we approach designing the AI funnel?? Are you already feeling overwhelmed by AI services competing for your attention, with free trials, and subscription offers? Shouldn’t?AI agents help reduce the need for our attention, the number of services and subscriptions in our lives, shift from selecting preferences to truly personalize tools that adapt to our needs.
Maybe it's time to rethink the funnel, to move away from engagement metrics as the business driver to outcomes focused on understanding and trust. Could we build better safeguards in the AI funnel for when things go wrong?
How is the AI funnel changing our behaviors?
Founder at Fabric & mindswarms (ex W+K/Nike, TBWA/Apple)
1 周Re your question about the funnel, I think the top of funnel will be super interesting to watch, only because AI is on its way to being free, and (I think) because everyone is building so fast, there isn't much thought put into differentiation (EVERYone has a "Deep Research" offering).
Creating change we hope to see
3 周Thank you Renn Scott for the insightful reframing on engagement metrics. Building trust is a key for developing true human connection, perhaps having more transparency, explainability, learning are additional measures to build trust in the engagement.
Innovative Product Design Leader / Strategic Program Manager | FemTech Influencer | Founder of Daily Goods Design LABS (DGDL)
3 周Thanks Albert for engaging us in this article. Funny that an article talking about AI prompts also shared to me a ‘subscribe’ button. Coincidental? ;) I’m thinking instead of moving from engagement metrics, what about reimagining what engagement is and should be from a measurement point of view. For women consumers, feedback I’ve heard is that in order to keep me engaged, a product, service or experience has to have real value and usefulness. It needs to fit into my daily experience. The feeling of the ability to develop true human connections to the the content that would then allows me to trust is key. Perhaps reframing this question in an optimistic way, where i as a designer, engineer or other is the boss of AI helps people think more creatively. I’m thinking how can we build a AI funnel for things to go right?